Here is a list of organizations and influential people that expressed concerns about the dangerous civil liberties implications of the bill. Though each organization or person may differ in their terminology, they all reach the same conclusion—CISPA is not a “sharing of information bill only.” It is an expansive bill that enables spying on users and allows for unaccountable companies and government agencies that can skirt privacy laws.

“Rogers (the bill’s author) says that the bill aims to ‘help the private sector defend itself from advanced cyber threats,’ but what it does is allow unlimited sharing of personally identifiable data amongst and between private companies and the government, without a single safeguard for privacy or civil liberty.”

Access Now’s petition for companies to withdraw support of CISPA can be found here.

“This bill would trump all current privacy laws including the forty-eight state library record confidentiality laws as well as the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Wiretap Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the Privacy Act.

Essentially, CISPA would establish a whole new system for our nation’s privacy laws and policies and legalize extraordinary intrusions into established privacy rights and civil liberties.”

“Keeping our computer systems secure is a real concern, but CISPA is absolutely the wrong answer. The bill would create a loophole in all existing privacy laws, allowing companies to share Internet users’ data with the National Security Agency, part of the Department of Defense, and the biggest spy agency in the world—without any legal oversight.”

“The US Congress is sneaking in a new law that gives them big brother spy powers over the entire web—and they’re hoping the world won’t notice. We helped stop their Net attack last time, let’s do it again.”

The Cato Institute has published a series of articles analyzing cybercrime, its truth, its myths, and the hard math behind legislation such as CISPA and the inherit problems with cyber security bills such as this.

“The cybercrime surveys we have examined exhibit [a] pattern of enormous, unverified outliers dominating the data. In some, 90 percent of the estimate appears to come from the answers of one or two individuals. In a 2006 survey of identity theft by the Federal Trade Commission, two respondents gave answers that would have added $37 billion to the estimate, dwarfing that of all other respondents combined. This is not simply a failure to achieve perfection or a matter of a few percentage points; it is the rule, rather than the exception. Among dozens of surveys, from security vendors, industry analysts and government agencies, we have not found one that appears free of this upward bias.”

“If the bill merely extended to other companies the opportunity to receive classified attack signatures from the NSA so they could better defend their networks, CDT would actively support the legislation. However, the bill goes much further, permitting ISPs to funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls.”

“CISPA demolishes existing barriers between the government and the private sector — and between government agencies — that restrict data sharing without cause, effectively allowing information about Americans’ use of the Internet to slosh back and forth uninhibited.”

“The legislation amends and updates the National Security Act of 1947, which doesn’t contain provisions regarding cyber crime. While this law absolutely needs to be updated, this legislation is the latest example of Congress debating technology issues, while not understanding the full implications of the legislation they’re trying to pass.

CISPA would have technology companies, like video game systems, internet service providers (ISPs) and more share your use of technology with the Government under the guise of cyber security. It’s George Orwell’s classic book 1984 right here, right now.”

“A cybersecurity bill that lets any company share your info with all of government, with no limits. In short, CISPA is the end of meaningful privacy for anyone with personal data on US-based services.”

“As it stands, CISPA could lead all too easily to governmental and corporate violations of our privacy and attacks on our right to speak freely via the Internet. While there is a need to protect vital national interests, we can’t do it at the expense of our freedoms.”

“CISPA aims to help companies defend against cyber attacks by facilitating the sharing of cyber threat information among government agencies and the private sector. Despite the bill’s noble intentions, however, it risks unduly expanding federal power, undermining freedom of contract, and harming U.S. competitiveness in the technology sector. Our coalition letter articulates the following major problems with CISPA and explains how Congress can amend the bill to fix them.. (Continued in article)”

“H.R. 3523 will allow websites to share users’ personal information with the federal government in the name of cyber security, with no judicial oversight. It would authorize internet providers, social networking sites, and other websites that store personal information to monitor users’ personal emails for the vague purpose of “protecting the rights and property” of the provider.”

“While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security. The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation.”

“In the name of the war on cyber crime, it would allow the government and private companies to deploy draconian measures to monitor, even censor, the Web. It might even be used to close down sites that publish classified files or information.”

“If the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passes, companies could intercept your text messages and emails to share with each other and the government – giving the US military the power to track, control, and share almost all of your online information without the use of a warrant. They could even block access to websites, or cut off your internet connection altogether. Like SOPA (which Facebook opposed), CISPA is a major threat to internet freedom and gives the government broad power to protect big media companies at your expense. It’s even a threat for internet users outside the US – because Facebook, Google and other major online service providers are headquartered in the US, even their non-American users’ online data could be used by the US military or corporations.”

“The FOIA is, in many ways, the fundamental safeguard for public oversight of government’s activities. CISPA dismisses it entirely, for the core activities of the newly proposed powers under the bill. If this level of disregard for public accountability exists throughout the other provisions, then CISPA is a mess. Even if it isn’t, creating a whole new FOIA exemption for information that is poorly defined and doesn’t even exist yet is irresponsible, and should be opposed.”

“Any cybersecurity bill with information sharing provisions “must include robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens.” The White House declared they would not support a bill that would “sacrifice the privacy of our citizens in the name of security.”

“CISPA is essentially an internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight–provided, of course, that they do so in the name of “cybersecurity.” The bill is very broadly written, and allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain large swaths of personal information contained in your emails or other online communication. It also allows emails and private information found online to be used for purposes far beyond any reasonable definition of fighting cyberterrorism.”

“[It] is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the Sopa and Pipa acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the US government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens.”

Bruce Schneier. Prominent security researcher and cryptographer, published seminal works on applied cryptography. Active in public policy regarding security issues; runs a weblog and writes a regular column for Wired magazine.

David J. Farber. Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University. Designer of the first electronic switching system. Was a major contributor to early programming languages and computer networking. EFF board member.

Peter Swire. C. William O’Neill Professor of Law, Ohio State University. Former Assistant to President Obama for Economic Policy, and former Chief Counselor for Privacy in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Geoff Kuenning. Professor of Computer Science and CS Clinic Director. Harvey Mudd College. File system researcher, built the SEER predictive hoarding system to predict what files mobile users will need while disconnected from a network.

Benjamin C. Pierce. Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania. Research on differential privacy, which allows formal reasoning about real-world privacy.

Sid Karin. Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego. Former founding Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI).

Eric Brunner-Williams. CTO, Wampumpeag. Signing as an individual.

Lawence C. Stewart. CTO, Cerissa research. Built the Etherphone at Xerox, the first telephone system working over a local area network; designed early e-commerce systems for the Internet at Open Market.

Ben Huh. Entrepreneur, CEO Cheezburger Inc.

Dave Burstein. Editor, DSL Prime.

Mikki Barry. Managing partner, Making Sense of Compliance.

Blake Pfankuch. Network engineer.

John Peach. Systems Administrator with 20+ years of experience.

Valdis Kletnieks. IT Professional, Virginia Tech University.

Darrell Hyde. Director of Architecture, Hosting.com.

Ryan Rawdon. Network and Security Engineer, was on the technical operations team for one of our country’s largest residential ISPs.

Christopher Liljenstolpe. Chair of the IETF Operations and Management Area Working Group. Chief architect for AS3561 (at the time about 30% of the Internet backbone by traffic) and AS1221 (Australia’s main Internet infrastructure).

Christopher McDonald. Vice President, PCCW Global.

Joseph Lorenzo Hall. Research Fellow focused on health information technology and electoral transparency, New York University.

Ronald D. Edge. IT expert.

David Henkel-Wallace. Vice President of Engineering. Terrajoule Corporation.